Using musical tones for tuning your speakers

[Tangband]

Music is frequencies ordered in a special way in the time-domain. Its very different the way a sine-sweep works.
When a bassplayer play his tune, he plays all frequencies at the same time, between about 40 Hz to 8000 KHz.
The fundamental frequency for the lowest tone for an electrical bass is 41,2 Hz. Its the tone E.

When using a dsp equalizer you can listen to music to see how much thats missing in the lower bass from your loudspeakers.

You only need:

1. A software eq with peq ( GLM, Dirac and such ). Some music to listen to.

2. This chart, and a guitar or piano to see wich lowest tone is played from the record.

3. Music to listen to : example - Sara K with the song manchild has its fundamental lowest tone at Eb, the bass is down-tuned a half note.

4. In the chart, you can see that the Eb is 38,9 Hz . I can clearly hear that my Genelec 8340 is beginning to fall of about 41 Hz. The bassplayers tone is slightly lower in amplitude when he plays the tone Eb in the track manchild when I listen to my genelecs.

5. Using Peq in GLM , I can now set a peak at 38,9 Hz and + 3 dB using two narrow shelving filters , thus lowering everything but 38,9 Hz with GLM 3, or use GLM 4 and a notch filter, and print + 3 dB Q= 6 , at 38,9 Hz.

6. After doing this, i can now clearly hear the lowest tone Eb when listening to Sara K:s manchild, making the Genelec 8340 even more fullrange.

I reckommend this to everyone that uses dsp for eq. Try it on your own speaker. Maybe you dont need to buy a subwoofer.
The chart is here:
https://pages.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

 

[Hipper]

The only issue I have with this idea is if the speaker is not designed to play the lower frequencies and therefore forcing it to do so could damage it.

Anyway, another way to find if low frequencies are playing correctly on your gear is to use these test tones:

http://realtraps.com/test-cd.htm

Normally we hear the fundamental frequency of a note but of course there are harmonic frequencies for each note too:

https://www.teachmeaudio.com/recording/sound-reproduction/fundamental-harmonic-frequencies

This means that if you can get your whole frequency response reasonable flat, or at least smooth, your system will produce the fundamentals and harmonics as intended.

 

[Tangband]

The only issue I have with this idea is if the speaker is not designed to play the lower frequencies and therefore forcing it to do so could damage it.

Anyway, another way to find if low frequencies are playing correctly on your gear is to use these test tones:

http://realtraps.com/test-cd.htm

Normally we hear the fundamental frequency of a note but of course there are harmonic frequencies for each note too:

https://www.teachmeaudio.com/recording/sound-reproduction/fundamental-harmonic-frequencies

This means that if you can get your whole frequency response reasonable flat, or at least smooth, your system will produce the fundamentals and harmonics as intended.

Your´re right there is no free lunch.
extending the bass response gonna do some penalties.

 

[antcollinet]

Pretty high penalty - not having speakers anymore.